Inspired by Barbara Genco’s Caldecott by the numbers: Brooklyn edition (math is fun!), I did a little bit of my own unscientific investigation playing with a spreadsheet and a couple of charts: for the past 20 years of Caldecott winners and honor titles. There are people more knowledgeable about the publisher/imprint situation and also where they are located (and were located when each individual title won the award) so please feel free to comment and correct. I will update the blog entry when corrections are received and verified.

Out of the 67 honored titles, some illustrators were named more than once like Jerry Pinkney: 4x, Mo Willems, Brian Collier, and Peter Sis: 3x, Kadir Nelson, Melissa Sweet, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Jon Klassen, 2x — not an exhaustive list, and some honored illustrators were also winners in other years, such as Jon Klassen, Brian Selznick, and David Wiesner.

58 out of the 87 titles are illustrated by men (67%)

Imprints & Publishers

32 individually named imprints

17 publishers were named (after some consolidation*)

10 titles are from publishers that do not operate mainly from the NYC offices – as to the best of my knowledge: Candlewick: 4x, Chronicle: 1x, Eerdmans: 2x, Harcourt: 3x, Beach Lane: 1x (11%)

* Please bear in mind that due to the nature of large companies incorporating smaller publishers with previous wins, the accounting can not be perfect. (Roaring Brook, for example, was independent, then part of Millbrook, and now part of Macmillan, which in turn is actually a part of an even bigger company, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.)

* Also recognize that children’s book publishing is a small world and there are but a few dozen companies operating in the U.S., eligible for the award.

Here are the two charts I made. If you can’t see them here, please click on the links.

5 responses to “Who Publishes Caldecott Winning Titles (1996-2015)?”

Thanks for all the work. It’s interesting once you combine the imprints into their larger group to see how the numbers change. Didn’t know that the N & C committee were previously one group. You’d have to quit your job to serve on the committee in this day and age if that were still true!! So many books and so little time…

Thanks. I always pay attention to the distribution of the awards among publishers when the award announcements are made even though KNOW that the committee members (my being a former one for a couple of Newbery committees) do NOT pay ANY attention to who publishes which book when the books are being discussed and voted on. It’s still interesting to note, for example, how Neal Porter at Roaring Brook has edited and brought to the readers so many Caldecott winning and honored titles, and how 5 out of the 7 Clarion’s wins/honors (through all Caldecott history) are by David Wiesner. Wiesner has 6 medals, like Jerry Pinkney, and Maurice Sendak got 8. But Marcia Brown was awarded either Gold or Silver 9 times!

Now I have to do a full spreadsheet and graph. Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?